Old cotton gin building demolished

By TONI WALKER

DAINGERFIELD – The city of Daingerfield saw an icon fall in recent weeks, as the cotton gin/seed mill was demolished. Residents took to social media to voice their opinions of the building’s demise.

When Life Church purchased the church building and property located across from Brookshire’s, they also purchased the property located at the corner of Linda Drive and Toby Street, where the old mill sat.

In March of 2016, Pastor Don White of First Assembly of God Church in Mount Pleasant came before the City Council to discuss the property and the old mill. White’s church helped start

Life Church in Daingerfield, which is led by Pastor Shelby Crump. White spoke to the council on behalf of crump and Life Church. White addressed the council with the church’s plan to investigate and evaluate the structural integrity of the building with hopes of refurbishing or renovating the historical building. According to White, the building was built in the late 1840s, and does not hold the interest of the State Historical Society.

“We want to be a blessing to the community. We want to help the city by adding to, not taking from,” White told the council. White also stated that it was the desire of the church to refurbish the building in such a way that eventually, it could be returned to the city and plans were discussed which included the building becoming a community center. The council acknowledged that there was not enough information at this time, and that the first thing would need to be an engineer determining the structural integrity of the building and what could safely be done to the building. The council all agreed that they need more information, and a clear, definite plan, before they could reconsider the issue.

With many people voicing frustration, displeasure, and even anger over the decision to tear the building down, the property owners came forward with their explanations. Crump posted his thoughts, and the church’s reasoning behind demolishing the building in a post of his own.

“Hello, as the pastor of Life Church I would like to offer our reasoning for the demo of the building. I will try to address several points on this thread to clarify with facts,” began Crump’s post. “We purchased the property over a year and a half ago with intentions of restoring the building for a community outreach and “multipurpose” building for both our church members and others for weddings, family reunions, birthday/ anniversaries, etc.”

“We had 2 different licensed structural engineering firms look at the building and both stated that the building would have to be completely torn down and rebuilt (same as The Legacy in Hughes Springs). The mortar that held the bricks together has outlasted its life expectancy so it wouldn’t hold together good enough to withstand the weight of a new roof. The estimated cost was between 1.3 and 2 million to restore it to just a two story shell. That price didn’t include many upgrades to make it “fancy.” We chose to leave it as it was structurally and clean it up (remove brush and vines) so people could at least see it.”

“I applied for three grants from the state and the best offer we had for financial assistance was an expense match grant that would basically match the amount that was spent in the restoration up to 50 percent, which meant that as a church that is less than two years old we would still have to come up with between 650,000 and one million dollars to cover the repairs. After the high winds that we had a few weeks back the roof began to collapse and it was so dangerous that when we went in to try to brace up the remaining curling and roof, the entire back wall collapsed nearly killing two of my church members that were helping. At that point I felt that it was time to end the danger.”

“I know that history is very important, but the future of people’s safety is more important,” concluded Crump.